lawn dart
1
6.8
- noun
- /lɔn dɑrt/
- Archaic
:
dardo de jardín
- The children eagerly threw their lawn darts, trying to see who could get closest to the center.
Examples
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I could remember times when the four of us had spent our summer evenings in the yard, playing lawn darts, eating fried chicken, my parents sharing sweaty drinks in tall glasses.
Fiction book (1996) -
We played lawn darts in the backyard, aiming for the target on the grass.
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Let's go play lawn darts.
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Well, I'm pretty good at lawn darts.
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I'm pretty good at lawn darts.
Fiction book (2002) -
Lawn darts in the backyard...
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They're built to be thrown like a lawn dart.
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A rope, shovel, bag of lime and some lawn darts.
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Tossing lawn darts?
Blog text (22) -
Look out—lawn dart!
Fiction book (1992)
Synonyms
140
1.1
A small pointed object you throw at a target
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'lawn' (a mowed grass area) + 'dart' (a small pointed missile), indicating a dart used on a lawn in an outdoor game. This straightforward noun‑noun compound follows normal English composition patterns and is cross‑linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Lawn dart comes from the image of a pointed dart thrown across a lawn of grass toward a ground target. So the name now means 'a heavy, pointed missile used in an outdoor game'.